


Become some chucklefuck

by ToxicPineapple



Series: Femslash February 2020 [24]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (I interpreted it really loosely though), (That's the prompt), (but then I was like.... kaemaki tho), (can you imagine I was gonna write fluffy Irumatsu), Akamatsu Kaede's Hatred of Humanity, Conversations, F/F, Femslash Feburary, Homelessness, Ice, Light descriptions of violence, Mentions of homelessness, Pre-Game Akamatsu Kaede, Pre-Game Harukawa Maki, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pregame Headcanons, You guys are a bunch of cowards who don't have pregame Maki hcs, headcanons, that's not a tag but it should be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: “It was a cold day. Middle of January kind of cold. I couldn’t bend my fingers all the way. That kind of thing. Frigid. There were icicles hanging off the overhang at the bus stop.” Kaede drums her fingers on the table. Their friend Korekiyo painted them black recently. It really matches her aesthetic. “And there was this, this homeless guy, sitting off to the side. Shivering in the cold. I could-- I could see the, the breaths leaving his mouth. And his lips were chapped and purple. He was holding up a cardboard sign. Anything helps. Y’know, typical-- typical homeless person stuff.”Kaede’s voice is shaking. Maki has never heard her stammer like this before. She reaches out a hand, wondering if it would be appropriate to close it over Kaede’s, but then retracts it after a moment.“And people were just, they were just passing him.”---Maki asks Kaede why she hates humanity. The answer isn't quite what she's expecting.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Harukawa Maki
Series: Femslash February 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616182
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	Become some chucklefuck

**Author's Note:**

> written for femslash february day twenty four! the prompt is "ice"

Kaede’s neutral expression doesn’t come across as very neutral at all. The only reason Maki can tell what it is is that they’ve been friends for so long. And even sometimes she gets worried that Kaede is upset with her, when she’s simply thinking about the homework.

It’s not an unreasonable thing to be worried about, though, in Maki’s professional opinion. Kaede’s brows furrow together by nature, scowl lines deepening around her eyes and lips rolling together, pressing into a straight, white line. She has permanent scars on her palms from where she digs in her fingernails. Just looking at her face at times is enough to give Maki a splitting migraine, when she imagines scowling so hard.

They were supposed to be studying today, but Maki hasn’t been able to focus and so she moved on to her favourite thing to look at whenever they’re together: Kaede. Kaede, meanwhile, has been staring off into space for the past half hour or so. It’s remarkable that she hasn’t budged even a little bit from her distracted position. It’s not abnormal behaviour for her, however. After being friends since their first year of middle school, Maki is pretty much used to this. There’s a question on her mind, though, one that  _ hasn’t  _ been answered by her many years of friendship with Kaede.

And after a moment she works up the courage to ask it. “Akamatsu,” she begins, tentatively. Kaede’s icy pink eyes slide over, brows quirking.

“What?” She asks. Maki knows she doesn’t mean anything by her flat tone; it’s simply her natural way of speaking. It puts her on edge regardless.

“Uhm, well, why do you hate humanity?” In retrospect, what a stupid question. Kaede’s eyebrows raise even further, an implicit question of,  _ what kind of question is that?  _ They’re close, of course, but not  _ that  _ close. There could be deeply traumatic reasons behind Kaede’s fervent hatred of their own species. Not really Maki’s place to be going around and placing all these inquiries. She has to know, though, or at least try to ask, because Kaede is so insistent about it. It’s easily her most defining character trait. (Though this is likely intentional, in Kaede’s part. She doesn’t want anybody getting the wrong idea.) Maki has always had a neutral, if not high opinion of mankind. Sure, they have their shortcomings, but they improve all the time. Isn’t that wonderful, in a way? “Sorry,” she apologises regardless. “If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have--”

“You’d have to have been there to understand,” Kaede says evenly, averting her gaze and resting her face on one hand. Maki relaxes. Her brows are still furrowed but her eyes are thoughtful, not offended. Clearly, Kaede has deemed them close enough for a proper answer to be acceptable. “I was in sixth year. Before I met you,” she specifies, unnecessarily, “and my mom had me ride the bus home for the first time. All by myself. Nothing happened to me, by the way, so don’t look all panicked.” She rolls her eyes at Maki’s concern. “It was something that I saw.”

“What… what did you see?” Maki asks quietly.

“It was a cold day. Middle of January kind of cold. I couldn’t bend my fingers all the way. That kind of thing. Frigid. There were icicles hanging off the overhang at the bus stop.” Kaede drums her fingers on the table. Their friend Korekiyo painted them black recently. It really matches her aesthetic. “And there was this, this homeless guy, sitting off to the side. Shivering in the cold. I could-- I could see the, the breaths leaving his mouth. And his lips were chapped and purple. He was holding up a cardboard sign.  _ Anything helps.  _ Y’know, typical-- typical homeless person stuff.”

Kaede’s voice is shaking. Maki has never heard her stammer like this before. She reaches out a hand, wondering if it would be appropriate to close it over Kaede’s, but then retracts it after a moment.  _ No, not my place. _

“And people were just, they were just passing him. And I didn’t have any money-- I had my backpack and an empty lunchbox. Nothing that would have helped him. I thought someone would stop and help him, get him a coat, a blanket, anything, but they just kept walking. Didn’t even meet his eyes. Sped up as they passed him.” Kaede’s eyes turn glassy. “Tugged their children closer. Didn’t want them to catch his disease.”

“Oh.” Maki murmurs.

“I’m not done,” Kaede bites out. She pauses. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have-- whatever.” She glares down at her lap. “This group of teenagers walked up to him eventually-- our age, they were at the time. Kind of guys who’d sign up for Danganronpa just to do some killing. Think it’d be fun, or whatever.” Kaede barks out a harsh laugh. “They had a hot drink, crouched down to give it to him. All nice, and all. I was happy about it for a second. Thought maybe my anxiety and guilt were all for nothing.”

Maki waits for Kaede to continue, but she doesn’t. Her hands are trembling. She seems distraught, but angry, mostly, very, very angry. Is she going to finish the story? Maki bites her lip, opens her mouth to speak, but then Kaede’s voice cuts her off.

“They-- turned the cup around. In his lap. Burned him. Laughed about it and walked away.” Kaede turns her gaze up towards the ceiling. “No one gave a shit. At the bus stop, around, whatever. The guy was screaming. People just walked faster.” She scowls. “I didn’t even do anything.”

“You were in elementary,” Maki whispers. “You couldn’t have been expected to--”

“Yeah? Those guys had busy lives to get to. Maybe they didn’t have money to give, or time to spare.” Kaede’s voice is bitter. “Not like I was the only person who had some preset reason not to go over and help. Not like I was the only person who had an acceptable excuse. That’s not the point. The point was we all collectively thought,  _ no one will judge me if I don’t help,  _ and then we didn’t. Even in sixth, I was sitting there thinking,  _ I can’t tell anyone about this, because they’ll hate me for not stepping in.  _ Shit,  _ I  _ hate me for not stepping in. And nobody did. Nobody cared.”

Her voice catches. Maki wonders if she’s going to start crying.

“Don’t look so guilty, Harukawa.” Kaede utters after a while. When she looks at Maki again, her expression is wry, not fragile. So there are no tears on the way. “You’re not one of those people. You’re-- y’know, you’re class president. Someday you’ll be president of the ASB. In third year. If you don’t become some chucklefuck and join Danganronpa next year, that is.” She laughs, but it’s humourless. “You probably would’ve helped the guy.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have.” Maki says quietly.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t there.” Kaede shrugs. “And the kind of person you are, after hearing that story, you would now.” She pauses, and then adds, “That’s, y’know, why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you’re not-- you--” Kaede struggles to articulate her thought. “Ah, fuck it. You’re just different, Harukawa, that’s all.” She smiles. The expression puts a dim light in her pale eyes, but a light nonetheless. Maki feels enthralled by it. “That’s why I hate humanity, but not you.”

There are a lot of ways that Maki could respond to that. She wants to cover her face so Kaede won’t see her cheeks heating up. Instead she just reaches out and covers the back of Kaede’s hand with one of hers. Sucks in a breath. “I like you too, Akamatsu.” She whispers. “A lot.”

(Kaede’s hands are warm to Maki’s cold ones. Weird, you’d think it’d be the other way around. Maki doesn’t mind, though. It’s a nice contrast.)

**Author's Note:**

> this one took me a while to figure out but i'm really proud of this one. i end up proud of all my kaemaki works tbh these ladies man. these ladies
> 
> it was fun writing them in a pregame setting!!! it was like writing a kaede and maki personality swap except kaede talks like miu and maki is kinda just vibing. iconic.
> 
> who was it that was like "pregame maki is in asb" because bro?? i appreciate you so much
> 
> pregame kaede is invalid when she's abusive but super valid when she's just fucking depressed about the state of the world
> 
> anyway y'all we're vibing uhhh yeah it's february thirteenth (like i said it took me a while ok i haven't worked on ff in a couple days)


End file.
